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Birth & Early Life
Paul Feyerabend was born on January 13th, 1924 in Vienna, Austria into a middle class family. After World War I, this left a crippled community in which there were countless hunger riots, famine as well as inflation. He spent most of his childhood days in his home, and occasionally going to the cinema. This caused a struggle for him once he started going to school at the age of 6. Once he adjusted to school and learned how to read, his life changed when he found new worlds within books. -
The Draft
After passing his final exams in high school in March of 1942, Feyerabend was drafted and sent to Pirmasens, Germany to start basic training. He would be performing work service for the Nazis, known as the Arbeitsdienst. He asked to stay in Germany to avoid the fighting, but changed his mind later as he became bored with cleaning the barracks. In November of that year he was sent back home, but left again before Christmas to join the Wehrmacht’s Pioneer Corps. -
War
During July of 1943 Feyerabend learned of his mother committing suicide. This news was unmoving to Feyerabend, which came as a shock to his fellow officers as he seemed to show no feelings. Through 1944, Feyerabend accumulated several promotions in ranking. He went from private soldier up to lieutenant before returning home for Christmas. He went back to Poland in January 1945, but was temporarily paralyzed later that year when he was shot in the spine during a retreat from the Russian army. -
The Change
After the war and recovering from paralysis. Feyerabend went to the major, asked for a job and was assigned to the education section. Later he planned on studying physics, math and astronomy but ultimately decided to read history and sociology at the University of Vienna. He initially thought that history was dissimilar to physics because history was based on real life. He then became dissatisfied with history and moved onto theoretical physics. -
Early Views
Feyerabend found himself invading philosophy lectures with other science students. Although these weren't his first times dealing with philosophy, these seemed to be the most influential. "He recalls that in all interventions he took the radical positivist line that science is the basis of knowledge; that it is empirical; and that nonempirical enterprises are either logic or nonsense." (Preston, 2020). These views are similar to "Vienna's Circle," a group of scientifically minded philosophers. -
Meeting Karl Popper
In August 1948 at the Austrian College Society's first meeting of the international seminar, Feyerabend met the philosopher Karl Popper. Popper had already made a name for himself as the Vienna Circle's "official opposition." Feyerabend states that Popper's ideas were not new to him as deductivism had been discussed since 1925 by Viktor Kraft, and that falsificationism had been "taken for granted" at the College Society. He related Popper's ideas to that of Ludwig Wittgenstein of Vienna. -
London School Of Economics
In the 1950s, Feyerabend published several papers on Wittgenstein, whom he planned on studying with in Cambridge. Wittgenstein died before Feyerabend got to England, and thus Karl Popper became his supervisor instead. Feyerabend began involving falsificationism into is own papers and lectures after stating that he "fell for it," when considering it a real option. Other philosophers with ideas on par with Popper often say Feyerabend as unorthodox, which he saw as a danger of abstract reasoning. -
Influences
Feyerabend saw rationalism as dangerous and stated that it "paralyses our judgement" and is invested with "an almost superhuman authority." Popper's views added another element which Feyerabend saw as dangerous, "simplicity." Such a philosophy "may be out of touch with reality...[that is], with scientific practice." (Preston, 2020). Popper's approach to the epistemology of science is an approach that Feyerabend himself furthered and followed as he was initially influenced by Popper. -
Consolations for the Specialist
Feyerabend was guided by his focus on values and creativity. He wrote a paper in 1970 called "Consolations for the Specialist." This paper shows him to be one of Kuhn's most perceptive critics. Most philosophers found inconsistencies and issues with Kuhn's view of science, but Feyerabend found an incitement for scientists to become orderly and mechanical. Feyerabend saw the other side of Kuhn's story, his attempt to show that individual narrow-mindedness is all for the best in science. -
Epistemological Anarchism
"The epistemological anarchist is opposed to all systems of rules and constraints in science. Great scientists are opportunistic and creative, willing to make use of any available technique for discovery and persuasion. Any attempt to establish rules of method in science will result only in a straitjacketing of this creativity." (Godfrey-Smith, 2003, p.111). For example, scientists from the previous eras have always been trying to break the rules laid by the philosophers. -
"Anything Goes"
Feyerabend felt as though the only rule that we can be sure will not interfere with imagination and/or progress was "anything goes." Similar to Kuhn's beliefs, Feyerabend felt that rival scientific theories were often linguistically incommensurable, and that observations are often contaminated with theories and assumptions and can not be considered a neutral test of theory. Feyerabend was, at times portrayed as an "enemy of science," but he felt he was only an enemy to "some" kinds of science. -
Against Method
Kuhn's view was that an attempt to create a rational account of scientific change would not align with how science should and can work. Feyerabend takes this another step further with his book "Against Method." This lays the groundwork for "epistemological anarchism." Feyerabend felt as though science should have no "method" or established theory. Crisis and revolution is what helps describe science, and creativity trumps methods and theories. -
Anything Goes Cont.
Feyerabend uses Galileo's arguments again his opponents (followers of Aristotle) as an example for "Against Method." Galileo defended the earth moving around the sun, not vice versa, as theorized by Copernicus. Galileo had to confront the argument that the earth is stationary. This argument comes from the experience that we all feel everyday, so it does not have theoretical background. Feyerabend states that if empiricism in philosophy has any teeth, people would have resisted Galileo's claims. -
Late Life & Death
Feyerabend performed a series of lectures entitled "What is knowledge? What is science?" These were then published as a book called "The Tyranny of Science." Besides the focus on the philosophy of science, Feyerabend also became seen as a leading cultural relativist. This was not only because he stressed the incommensurability of some theories, but because he defended relativism in politics as well as in epistemology. Feyerabend died on February 11th, 1994 at the Genolier Clinic on Lake Geneva. -
References
-Godfrey-Smith, P. (2003). Theory and reality : an introduction to the philosophy of science. University of Chicago Press. -Preston, John, "Paul Feyerabend", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2020/entries/feyerabend/. Video:
-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbDM5Wnvqh0 -
Video Overview
Here is a link to a YouTube video titled "Paul Feyerabend: The Maverick Behind Philosophy of Science" uploaded by Chronicles of Legends. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbDM5Wnvqh0